Volunteers helped soccer camp

My name is Mike Hallenbeck, and I am the head coach of the Gloversville girls varsity soccer team. Last week, the coaches of the girls soccer program (Wendell Edwards, Rachel Reile and I) ran a youth soccer camp for students ranging from grades three to eight. We had 43 campers show up and work on their skills to become better soccer players. Campers learned and worked on basic fundamentals, which included dribbling, passing, trapping, shooting and many other skills.

The reason I am writing this letter to the editor is to thank all of the current and former soccer players of Gloversville who so graciously donated their time to come help the youth of our community learn and appreciate the game of soccer.

Each day of camp we were fortunate to have more than 20 older players there to work with the campers. This really says a lot about the type of kids that come from Gloversville; too often people speak badly about my hometown, but when high school students, college students and even some who have graduated from college can take time out of their life to work with our youth, it is truly something special.

Thank you to all of the campers who attended, to the parents who supported the camp and continue to support the Girls Soccer program, to my assistant coaches – Coach Edwards and Coach Reile – but most of all, to the aforementioned volunteers who made the soccer camp a success this summer.